A British man who was killed fighting alongside Al Qaeda-linked extremists in Syria funded his trip by mugging people in an affluent area of London, The Mail on Sunday has learned.

Choukri Ellekhlifi, 22, threatened victims with a Taser-style high-voltage stun gun and forced them to hand over valuables including designer watches and mobile phones.

He lived in London until a year ago when he skipped bail and travelled to Syria to join a group of Islamic extremists waging war on President Assad’s regime.

Now it has been revealed that he was one of three British men killed as their group attacked pro-government forces near the city of Aleppo on August 11.

The trio were part of a group of ten British jihadists who joined up with 20 other Britons to fight with the Al-Nusra Front, which is allied to Al Qaeda.

Ellekhlifi had joined the rebels under a pseudonym but his true identity became clear after police compared mugshots taken after his arrest for the street robberies with a photo of British fighters in Syria that emerged last week.

Another man pictured with him, Mohammed el-Araj, 23, from Ladbroke Grove, West London, was killed two weeks later during a firefight.

Months before his death, Ellekhlifi targeted wealthy individuals in Belgravia, Central London to raise funds for his journey to the Middle East, according to security sources.

Alongside two accomplices – Mohamed Elyasse Taleouine, 21, and Mohammed Ibrahim, 23, both from West London – Ellekhlifi committed eight robberies during a four-day crime spree last year.

‘Wearing masks, they would approach their victims on bicycles, threaten them with a stun gun and demand they hand over their possessions,’ a security source said.

Two of the gang’s victims needed hospital treatment after the gun was fired at them.

The three men were arrested and released on bail and it is thought that Ellekhlifi then fled Britain to join the Syrian rebels.

MI5 estimates that up to 300 young Britons have travelled to fight in Syria. Fears are growing that they could pose a terrorist threat when they return home.

Assad is an evil dictator, but he really is doing the work that the British police can’t do.

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. He is completing a book on the international challenges America faces in the 21st century.

A Z

“Now it has been revealed that he was one of three British men killed”

And the British people are that much safer.

muchiboy

With the deepest respect to those who suffered at the hands of the Muslim criminal Choukri Ellekhlifi,this reminds me of “James”,in Richard Thompson’s “Vincent Black Lightening,1952″,who “robbed many a man” to get his Vincent machine.And for those who might like British bikes,an time long and with some regrets,gone.

Muslims graduate from petty crimes to terrorists the more religious they become.
It’s like a regression from civilized human to barbarian to animal.
It makes you wonder if they were born psychopaths or if it is learned behavior

john spielman

I think it’s neither,but as one gets deeper into Islam, that evil
doctrine of demons introduced into the world thanks to that demon possessed murderer thief liar adulterer and pedophile Muhammed, muslims become demon possessed themselves!

Ummah Gummah

.

They mug people in a gang, using a lethal weapon and are released on bail..??!!

.

chris heath

The Koran should be classed as a weapon of war, more correctly, a supremacist totalitarian ideology of war.

First, it sets Muslims as superior. Then all others are called worse than beasts, and criminal.
Then it explicitly states that non-believers are to be fought and killed.
The overall aim is for everyone on earth to be subdued to the will of Allah.
Then peace will reign.
Oh, I see now, the kind of peace that reigns in Syria, 85% Muslim country.